Akademy/2024/BoFs

Akademy Hybrid BoFs: Best Practice

This guide assumes that your BoF aims to create a relatively natural conversation between in-person and online participants. See below for tips in a suboptimal acoustic situation.

BoF Organizing Tips:

Collect topics for discussion before the BoF. You can do this by chatting with people at the event or asking in the matrix/discuss/social media/etc in advance! Among other benefits, this will structure the conversation making it easier to follow if sound is suboptimal.

When doing activities, consider the following:

• How will online participants participate?
• Are materials, including anything written on a white board, visible to participants?

At the BoF

Before the BoF begins connect with or ask for a volunteer to be the Facilitator, if notes are needed also ask someone to volunteer to take notes.

• Work with the Facilitator to include the online participants in the group discussion. Ask your moderator to relay questions from the chat and call on people in the room.
• Speak clearly into the microphone, repeat questions into the mic before answering.

BoF Facilitating Tips:

You don't need to know about the topic to be a good BoF facilitator! Facilitators make sure the online and in-person attendees are able to participate and engage in the conversation. If there are technical difficulties, reach out to the IT Support volunteer.

• At the beginning of the BoF let the chat and the in-person participants know that you're the moderator and to contact you with questions.

Example text for the chat, to post at the very beginning and again after a presentation:

    "I will monitor the conversation here so if you have questions, please let me know or simply ask your question in the chat!"

• At the end of the session, you can invite participants to continue the conversation with something like: "Thank you everyone. Feel free to contimue the conversation in the Matrix room <LINK> if you have additional comments/questions."

If in doubt, remember MOMS for Good BoFs:

Moderate: make sure only one participant speaks at a time

Observe: keep an eye on the chat for activity there

Mention: draw attention to online participants who want to speak

Share: make space for in-person and online participants to contribute

In Case Of Poor Acoustics

Same as above, but ...

• The moderator(s) should sit next to the mic and repeat questions/comments slowly and clearly.
• When in-person participants have trouble hearing the online participants, the moderator(s) can repeat questions/comments slowly and clearly.